


Looking Back to the Future

by frubeto



Series: Renoventures [3]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frubeto/pseuds/frubeto
Summary: The human brain isn’t meant to process the passing of 930 years in an instant,that’s what Doctor Culber had said.I know the temptation is great to go into Starfleet’s records and find out what happened to our loved ones after we left. But we’re all still reeling from everything we went through. There’s no harm in waiting.No one listens to him.
Relationships: Adira Tal & Sylvia Tilly, Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets, James T. Kirk & Sylvia Tilly, Jett Reno & Sylvia Tilly
Series: Renoventures [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095290
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	Looking Back to the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to Terra Firma, but nothing significant.

_The human brain isn’t meant to process the passing of 930 years in an instant._

That’s what Doctor Culber had said.

_I know the temptation is great to go into Starfleet’s records and find out what happened to our loved ones after we left. But we can barely comprehend this new time as it is, and we’re all still reeling from everything we went through in the last few days. There’s no harm in waiting until we’ve settled in a little. And prepared ourselves for the stories we might be facing in our past. The data will still be there._

And Reno had agreed with him. In principle. And yet – 

She was leaning onto the console, the screen in front of her bright with information, while she was still staring at the same line of text she’d been staring at since she’d opened the file. Watching it blur in and out of focus as her mind projected a different image.

_...conflicts on Mirillia VI… broken treaty… classified as hostile… a threat to the Federation… General Order 7d… no vessel under any condition, emergency or otherwise…_

She’d read the entry hours ago, before the start of her shift, but it would probably be etched into her retina for a while to come. Hostile! What could probably have happened in a few hundred years to warrant that response? Sure, the Mirillians and Soyousians had always been protective of their planet – and for good reason – but an order of no contact? That was huge. It left them without any support from Starfleet. And it squashed her own hope of ever ending the traditional mourning period.

She sighed, and felt for the ring on her index finger. Her wife had waited 932 years already. And unless Discovery managed to do the impossible and got sent exactly where she needed her to be for a second time, there would be many more. It wasn’t exactly what she deserved. Well, the universe was a bitch sometimes.

From somewhere to Reno’s left, a figure approached, and he blinked.

“Reno! I need you to check the diagnostics, it’s spewing out false positives on the new components.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was out her mouth before she’d even had time to think about who she was talking to, and she grimaced immediately once she realized.

“Sorry.”

Stamets did an impressive double take, having already passed her, and then took the few steps backwards to frown at her.

“Everything alright?”

She shook her head and waved him off. She was  _not_ going to go into it with him, of all people.

“I’ll see what I can do for the diagnostic,” she said instead.

But his worried look still followed her as she went to do just that.

*

The cold metal was slowly getting unconfortable under her, but Tilly still hadn’t calmed down enough to leave the little nook in engineering she had crammed herself into. She was First Officer of this ship now. She couldn’t just run around throwing a fit anymore, there was a minimum of composure expected of her and right now, she was feeling none of it.

It was her own fault, really. Why had she thought this a good idea in the first place? A little downtime near the end of shift, and a treacherous thought of how-bad-can-it-be, a generous amount of curiosity and impulsivity, and now – she sighed. Secret crying in engineering it was.

It was Reno, in the end, who found her.

First she thought she would just leave her to it, not sure if she even knew what to do with people crying for unknown reasons, but then she put down her equipment and asked her to scoot, and she did.

She would have preferred Michael, maybe, or Detmer, or Owo, but Reno was still one of the better options. She probably wasn’t happy about this either, but she wouldn’t judge. Well, she wouldn’t tear her to shreds. Right now she was only sitting next to her. Waiting.

Tilly caved.

“I know they told us not to, that it would only make things harder, and in hindsight that was exactly what happened, but I just wanted to-”

She felt her voice waver and had to continue in barely a whisper.

  
“My mum. And my friends, I-”

She swallowed hard and gripped the edge of her uniform tighter. As cool as the new tricom badges were, sometimes she missed carrying something to hold on to.

“You checked the databases,” Reno concluded.

“Yeah.”

Shit, why did her voice have to sound so damn guilty? 

But Reno didn’t even seem surprised.

“Did that three days ago,” she explained. “Remember when that new coolant exploded right in my face?”

Tilly did indeed. They had all been very worried – working with new substances also meant working with new untrained-for dangers – but Doctor Culber had declared it more of a nuisance than anything else. Which was why she’d been surprised when he had still taken her off duty for the rest of the day. Huh. That explained that.

“Yeah, wasn’t paying attention. I swear I still find pieces of that stuff in my quarters.”

The mental image made Tilly chuckle, and Reno joined in with a small smile of her own, before leaning out of their hiding place and producing a tissue she gratefully accepted.

“So what happened to them?”

“They died.”

“Duh.”

Tilly smiled, despite herself. It only lasted a moment.

“They lived their lives, I think. They were happy.”

Reno hummed.

“My friend Jim from the Academy, he-”

She took a deep breath, her body still warring with itself about whether to smile or to cry.

“He beat me to captaincy, I guess. Became youngest flagship captain in the Fleet. Five year exploratory missions. Finding new life and new civilizations. All that. Even made it to admiral in the end.”

She pointed at the corresponding part in the file she had opened. Reno was leaning over to see.

“We always had this thing going on, y’know, _the two most promising cadets in the command track,”_ she mocked. “But we got along great.”

There was an image of the Enterprise crew below, and Tilly scrolled to stare at it again. He looked so at home on that bridge. Like he belonged on that chair. Next to all those people who put their lives in his hands every day.

“Wait, hold up,” Reno interrupted her thoughts. “We’re talking about James Tiberius Kirk here?”

She looked up.

“Yeah? You know him?”

“Read about him. The guy is hard to avoid. Took the Enterprise directly from Pike, hooked up with Burnham’s brother and saved the Federation’s ass multiple times over. And you what, played drinking games with him?”

Hah. Kirk and an irresponsible party. What a thought. He’d needed almost as much convincing as Michael had to join her even once.

“Oh no, he was more the study group kind of guy. We had the most fun buried in a pile of books. Sometimes he even had those actual printed ones? On paper? Absolutely loved them. He was weird like that.”

She smiled at the memory, and at Reno, who could only shake her head in amazed disbelief. But it quickly turned bittersweet.

“I’m so proud of him,” she said, and meant it, but her voice was breaking again, new tears pooling in her eyes.

“I’m not even sad at this point, I don’t know why I’m crying, I just-”

An attempt to stop a sob resulted in an only even less dignified sound coming out her mouth, and she closed the holoPADD with a wave to put her head in her hands.

Reno reached out carefully, and she let herself be pulled into an embrace.

“I just wish I could have been there with him.”

Reno sighed, and buried a hand in her curls, and while she missed whatever inspiring and heartwarming thing Michael would have said at this point, it was still surprisingly comforting.

And that was how Stamets found them a while later, probably looking for Reno, since she hadn’t returned from whatever she’d been doing. She noticed him first, too, throwing him a look that said  _‘what, you wanna take over the crying ensign instead?’_ as far as Tilly could make out when she jolted up and wiped the tears from her face to see a very uncomfortable Stamets standing before them. She cleared her throat.

“Sir?”

Reno’s hand was still at the small of her back, holding her up.

“Uh. Saru will probably call for you soon, I hear there’s a… situation?”

He turned to Reno.

“And Adira could use your help with the…” 

He trailed off, pointing uselessly behind himself as Reno looked to her for confirmation. She nodded, and Reno gave her an encouraging pat.

“I’m on it.” 

And then she was climbing out, basically shoving Stamets away in front of her to leave her alone before she could even say  _‘thank you’._

*

“Are they always like this?”

Tilly looked up at Adira, sitting cross-legged opposite her and screwing the mounting off an ionizer, and considered the question. Stamets was obviously in an exceptionally bad mood today, but to say no would have been a lie – t hey’d been at each other’s throats since Reno had been cleared for duty  after her rescue .

“Yes,” she settled on. “But it’s not usually this bad. You’ll get used to it.”

“Hm,” Adira made, and then stuck their head into the open panel between them.

They had been tasked with finding the origin of an untraceable power surge and were disassembling component after component since the scans weren’t showing them anything. It was tedious work, and Tilly had… offered to be an extra set of eyes. Really she had wanted to spend some time with the new kid. Her replacement, in a way. Get to know them. She wasn’t jealous, just to be clear, only… curious. After all they were even younger and even better than she’d been when she’d started here, and Stamets… seemed to have taken a liking to them. Of course he had.

But judging by the constant quarreling coming from the other end of the room, she could have chosen a better time for this.

“-and what the fuck did you do to my sensors?!”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, I know you’ve been messing with them and the readings are all over the place. So what did you do.”

“I took them apart when I changed the relays cause I didn’t want us to blow up. As you can see in the log if you bothered to check.”

There was the distinct sound of a flux coupler hitting the rest of a toolbox with force.

“What is wrong with you?”

Tilly cleared her throat and handed the part she’d been examining to Adira.

“Reject pile. Hand me the green thing?”

“Yeah.”

They chose one of the piles only they knew the meaning of at this point, and then held out the requested took.

Stamets meanwhile had recovered from the face journey he’d been sent on. 

“Take that attitude somewhere else, yeah?”

“My attitude?”

Tilly had long since tuned them out, a skill she was glad her upbringing had taught her, and when she risked a glance over at the two, she caught Reno’s eyes just as she was delivering something she was sure was scathing  and simultaneously conveying deepest boredom with the situation, in true Reno fashion. But then she suddenly trailed off and her expression morphed to understanding.

“Oh.”

She clicked her tongue.

“You too, huh?”

“What.”

“Well, if even you can’t listen to your better half-”

Tilly turned back to her work. This was going from bad to worse. If there was one thing Stamets didn’t want to hear, it was that. Sometimes she wondered if Reno kept a list to rile him up, or if she just got lucky.

“My better half?!”

Tilly cringed, and shared a long-suffering look with Adira as they passed her a conduit board. It was weird to think of them as 16, and at the same time possibly hundreds of years old. But she liked weird. And she liked Adira. They would fit right in with all the craziness of this ship.

“-and just because you like him so much better than me-”

“Wow, hey, not in front of the kids, okay?” 

Reno sounded almost conciliatory now, and Tilly observed out of the corner of her eyes how Stamets followed her line of sight to them, first confused, then affronted, opening and closing his mouth a few times.

“Do you need a hug?” Reno added, and that was the last straw.

“No, I do not need a hug,” he hissed, and sharply turned to stalk off.

Reno called after him.

“You’re welcome!”

“Tilly!” 

“Yes!”

They both sat up straighter, knowing they had no progress to report.

“Please tell me you have something.”

He stopped to her left, all tense energy. She shook her head.

“Sorry.”

Across the gap, Adira was watching with wide eyes. Of course, they probably hadn’t been at the receiving end of one of Stamets’ sharp tongued attacks yet. Maybe she should-

“Less gossiping, more working.”

They swallowed, and nodded. And then Stamets  went to leave like that, and there was no way he was getting away with that when she just decided she liked them.

“Sir!”

She jumped up. Waited for him to stop and turn.

“Hm?”

“Just. As first officer, my duties include the well-being of the crew, and if there’s anything I can do…”

The look he leveled her with she knew all too well.

“Tilly, I know you’re taking this all very seriously,” he started, in that condescending voice like he was explaining basic quantum mechanics to her. He was hitting where he knew it hurt. Trying to push her away. Again. Like every time he was stressed, or angry, or in pain. But not this time. She squared her shoulders.

“This crew is all we have now!” she interrupted him.

The hands he’d been talking with dropped, and his eyebrows raised in disbelief that she’d dared.

She took a deep breath.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk to Commander Reno-”  
  


“Hey!”

“And if you don’t want to fess up to Doctor Culber, you know we’re all here for you, right?”

They both stood frozen for a moment, like the entire ship held their breath in anticipation, but then Stamets sighed, strained, and nodded. Probably only because he’d decided arguing with her was more trouble than it was worth, but she’d count it as a victory anyway.

“I’m fine. No more secrets between Hugh and me.”

*

Paul didn’t notice him when he entered engineering. Entirely focused on the screen in front of him, deep in thought as the last of his team were filing out for lunch, passing Hugh on the stairs. Only Adira was still there, working across from him, but when they spotted him they immediately shut down their station and muttered some excuse about  _‘needing to feed the squid’._ He threw them a grateful smile. At least one person able to read a room today.

Finally, Paul turned.

“Oh. Hey.”

The concentration lines slowly vanished from his face, replaced by a soft smile, and Hugh sighed as the Paul emerged that he’d come to see.

“I know it’s lunchtime, but I don’t think I can make it, there’s this...”

But Hugh already had his arms around his middle and his forehead dropped onto his shoulders before he could finish the sentence.

“...Hugh?”

It took a second of surprise and confusion, but then Paul closed his own arms around his shoulders and pulled him close, and Hugh could have just about cried right there and then at the tension falling off him. Still worked like a charm.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m a hypocrite,” he said, hoping that Paul would get what he meant, since he didn’t really have the time or the strength to go into it now. He still needed to get through half a shift. And see that he made it to the mess hall in time.

But he could practically hear him frown next to him. He grimaced.

“Mom…,” he managed to add, his voice already failing on the single word, but luckily Paul understood, if the split second of a sharp inhale was anything to go by.

Paul knew he’d been far from prepared to lose her, even less prepared to  _not be there_ when he did, and he hadn’t even found the words yet to say ‘ _hey I’m not dead’_ before he was again, in a way, and now… and now-

He found himself held even tighter, face mushed into the crook of Paul’s neck as a hand carefully went up to cradle his head and run it’s fingers over the short hair at the back.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Still he stayed in the embrace for a few moments longer, soaking up the warmth coming from his partner’s body surrounding him and the soft skin under his cheek, and taking several deep breaths before he pulled away.

“But I needed that.”

“Okay.”

Paul smiled at him, drawing his arms back until his hands cupped Hugh’s face.

“I’ll try to be done on time today and you can tell me about it?”

Hugh nodded softly.

  
“Thank you.”

And then he leaned in once more to press a kiss to Paul’s lips, before steeling himself  to go face the mess hall.

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, [Until Death Do Us Part](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29607498) is focusing in more detail on that Reno part because of _course_ Discovery always turns up where she's needed. 
> 
> Talk to me on [tumblr](http://frubeto.tumblr.com).


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